remember

Remember - that word carries with it innumerable connotations.  Memories flood your conscious from any and every direction.  Memories of good days and bad.  Lots of firsts and probably just as many lasts.

Life has been...well, life lately. Busy.  Stress inducing.  Joyful.  Sad.  All of those wonderful and horrific emotions and experiences rolled into one slightly crazy but wonderful life.  I get caught up in the horrific sometimes, and it is difficult to bring to mind the wonderful.  I don't know if anyone else out there gets that - but there it is.  Recently though, there has been this still small voice just saying "remember."

Remember...

• The Lord is great and awesome (Nehemiah 4:14)
• It is okay to pray for physical strength - Nehemiah prayed, "Lord, strengthen my hands."
• It is a fight - we struggle everyday against powers of darkness (Ephesians 6) and within ourselves
• Finally, what you are fighting for.  Nehemiah 4:14 says to fight for your families and homes.  

Remember...

I often need to be reminded that it is not about me and those things that make up what life is about is worth fighting for.  And every day I have the choice to stand and fight or sit and do nothing.  I let life get in the way - I get busy and that leads to exhaustion.  I get tired.  Then I remember that Nehemiah 4:14 is Nehemiah's rallying cry for the people of Israel who were rebuilding the wall and who were tired!  

Then I remember that what I am to be fighting gets very personal and come with names - My parents, my sisters, Jonathan (bro-in-law), Madison, Wyatt, Daisy Claire, Papaw, the ladies I work with, the children that I have been entrusted with at work.  That is when I must push aside the exhaustion, pray for God to strengthen my hands, and I must fight.  I must fight remembering though that it is not a war waged alone - it is God who gives the self-control, the strength, and grace to keep going even when life is... life.

So, today and all the rest of your tomorrows remember...